


teach me to be good

by theworldisblue



Category: Batman (Comics), Super Sons (Comics)
Genre: Angst, Character Study, Damian Wayne is Robin, Gen, Jonathan Kent is Superboy, My attempt at being poetic, but if you tilt your head and squint your eyes it might look like a slash fic, do with that what you will, i cried writing it does that help, idk i think angst, its almost like a monologue, its kinda dark dont say i didnt warn you, its pretty bittersweet, its pretty much just jon and dami, probably projection lets be honest here, supersons but make it reflective and sad, the narrator is wise and all-knowing, there some nice imagery though, theres no plot at all, theres some self-destructive thoughts please beware, this was written with purely platonic intentions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-11
Updated: 2020-08-11
Packaged: 2021-03-06 04:55:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,330
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25837642
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theworldisblue/pseuds/theworldisblue
Summary: And at first Damian hated him for it. Hated him for being everything that Damian could not be. Jon was weak, yes, but he had so much faith in the world around him. Every time he put that stupid “S” symbol on his chest he braved the world with a wonderment that could only befall someone who truly had only ever known the softest parts of life. Someone who, in their heart, believed that everything was good. That everything could be.
Relationships: Jonathan Samuel Kent & Damian Wayne
Comments: 4
Kudos: 14





	teach me to be good

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this way too late when I was way to in my feels. Something about the fundamental differences between Jon and Damian as always kind of struck me and I know Damian puts on a good show of not caring for him, but we all know he secretly admires Jon. Even if its for something as simple as seeing the world a way Damian never could. This was my fic where I (very) self indulgently explored that. 
> 
> It might be a little scattered, but I love it anyway. I particularly love this style of writing, so I had a lot of fun with this one. 
> 
> Just as a warning, there is some underlying themes of self-hatred and personal demons. If something like that might hit a little close to home in a bad way, please proceed with caution. There isn't anything inherently specific or dark, but it's better to be safe than sorry.

It was one of the coldest nights in awhile, the freezing tendrils of air finding their way into Damian’s costume chilling him to the bone. Jon didn't seem to notice, hopping around the city with a youthful cry and sparkling eyes. He took everything as new. Things like helping a woman find her way to the bus stop and saving a cat from a particularly big dog seemed to set him alive. They were so small. Such little things that made his smile wide and bright, cheeks painted red from the whipping wind as he rushed around. Of course, it did well to billow his cape behind him, making for a magnificent backdrop of color for the tiny hero. 

Jon looked good in color, Damian noticed, as he followed, slipping between the cracks of buildings and hiding along shadows. It was dark tonight, a noticeable difference from the usual sing-songy streets of Metropolis. Usually there were streetlights for miles, bright buildings reaching up into the sky and towering the bustling streets. Nights in Metropolis were usually alive, pulsing with events and people. It was so very different from Gotham. Though, nothing was quite like Gotham. 

Not tonight though. There was a power outage a few hours right before the dead of night, promptly shutting up the city into a box of darkness. No one was out now, not really. They all holed up in their homes of warmth and candles and softly told “good nights” as they waited for morning. As if promising that they would submit themselves to the quiet life just once, no doubt ready to leap out the very next night and stay out extra late, just to make up for lost time. 

For now, it was just the stragglers. People who, for one reason or another, couldn't find their way inside. There wasn't much crime, so Damian watched from afar as Jon flew people from place to place, warming up gloves and offering a thumbs up to tired eyes.

He supposed he should feel more comfortable in the darkness. Gotham was usually like this. Shadowy and cold and unyieldingly restless, like small creatures crawling just beneath the surface of darkness. It was what he knew, what he had come to trust, to count on. Gotham had its own rule book. One he had memorized and knew how to manipulate and play to his advantage. Any other city, though workable, simply wasn’t as safe as Gotham. Wasn't as known. Nothing ever was. It was because of this that the new void that was Superman’s city was unnerving to the small boy crouching in the cold on a lonely rooftop. This was the place of light. The bright opening gates of cheeky smiles and pats on the back and curtains drawn back from windows so you can watch family game night explode about within. 

This was the city of Jon. Of the small boy who ran out of his house every night in Costco jeans and a fluttering red cape who wanted so badly to simply do _good_. Because that is what he was- good. Right down to his very core. Damian would be the one to know. He had tried his very best to find the bad in Jon. To see something beneath the two-dimensional smile and bright blue eyes that rivaled the stars in regards to shine. Some nights, while up on a small roof, standing next to the boy, heaving and huffing out breaths into the freezing air after a particularly tricky save, his body radiating the heat reminiscent of a blazing trail-head fire, Damian thinks that Jon’s eyes, from the way they light up the sky around them, really must be stars.

Maybe it was just a kryptonian thing. 

Still, Damian had tried to find the bad in the overwhelming plume of good that seemed to ooze from Jon every waking, and dreaming, moment. What he found, as he peeled back the layers, was nothing but a boy, true and real and kind. That was all. 

And at first Damian hated him for it. Hated him for being everything that Damian could not be. Jon was weak, yes, but he had so much faith in the world around him. Every time he put that stupid “S” symbol on his chest he braved the world with a wonderment that could only befall someone who truly had only ever known the softest parts of life. Someone who, in their heart, believed that everything was good. That everything could be. 

It was idiotic. And terrifying. Because Damian hoped it would never change. And because he knew, someday, like clockwork, it would. Because it always did. Everyone grew up someday. 

Damian was jealous for a time too. He envied the boy that got everything he hadn’t even known he wanted. Not that he would ever admit he wanted it in the first place. Because he was a Wayne. He didn't need to be coddled like a child. He didn't need to believe in happy endings and hugs for all. He never had. Still, he couldn't shake the feeling that he had never even gotten to know what it must be like. To be so carefree. So _happy_.

But those feelings could be controlled, cast out. They weren’t what bugged him the most. No, it was the fact that Jon believed _everything_ was good. He believed that every villain he met was worth something, in the end. That everyone had some reason, some magic formula to being fixed. To not do evil things anymore. He truly thought he could save everyone. Not just in the save-people-from-a-burning-building or stop-someone-from-getting-mugged type of way either. He believed people could be saved in the maybe-with-some-understanding-the-bad-guy-will-see-the-wrong-in-his-ways type of save. And, to be frank, he was wrong. 

But also, it meant that Jon believed _Damian_ was good. He didn't know much about Damian’s time in The League. Jon had skimmed the very surface, knowing only paper facts and clipped confessions on rough days through watery eyes, but nothing more. He knew enough not to push too much. He knew enough to know that somewhere under the surface, Damian appreciated him for not bringing it up much. 

Jon really, truly believed he knew Damian. But he didn't. Never would. Not the way Mother did. Not the way his caretaker did. Or the way the kind lady who used to dress his wounds and hum quiet songs in his ear when no one was around for hours and hours, did. Not the way all of his victims had come to know him. Jon knew Damian as Robin. Knew him as the flimsy mask he had accosted from his brother, and had claimed as his own. 

He knew Damian as Damian had hoped he would. Jon was too trusting to not search beneath the surface. To not notice the poorly hidden monster feeding underneath his very skin, sometimes writhing and fighting with all it’s might to be set free. Jon never saw how incredibly close Damian was to losing this forever battle from time to time. 

Because of course he didn't. Because he was Jon. And Jon didn't see monsters. Not as they were anyway. He didn't shy away from them as he should. He saw them as the greatest victims, as the first to be saved. He pitied them. Weeped for them when he wasn't fast enough to stop them from running their lives through with a stake. Monsters it seemed, save for maybe Joker, never did live too long. They were bright, destructive fireworks that blew like fuses that took and hurt before fading out forever. Jon was too blind to see that a monster was only what it was, nothing more. He was so good that he never considered that there might be something out there that wasn't. 

And Damian wasn't. That was his greatest shame. Knowing that one day Jon would see he was no better than the bad guys they stopped night to night. Knowing that Damian would be the thing to steal away that sparkle in his eyes. Once he knew, truly knew, Damian for what he was, he would see the world for what it’s always been. 

Though, it wasn't as clear to Damian as it's being put now. He didn't know these things on the surface. He knew them only deep in his heart, like an ever-firing cannon aimed directly at the monster within its chains made of Robin’s domino mask. He would feel it in fleeting moments of his lively patrols with the boy. It would whisper to him during the weightless moments when jumping between rooftops. It would float in the air, singing in his ears as he sprinted from save to save. Even as the nights were finally over, and Jon was sleepily rubbing those starry eyes on their way home, it would nag in the back of his mind. 

He ignored it every time. Though he knew it was impossibly unfair to take advantage of this gentle creature, this soft soul, as his mother would put it, he couldn't help himself. Couldn't help but march on with him just as the sun sunk into the valleys beyond the city of all that was good and fight beside him at every opening. The blinding light that was Jon made it easier not to be condemned to the darkness so constantly. Jon’s pure good made the fact that he was bad hurt just a little less, if only for breathless moments here and there. The moments in between all time, where things set still in place. Where Damian could swear he _saw_ the fireworks explode all around Jon as if saying _I am the sun if it were to be a person._

Damian liked to think it rubbed off on him, if only a little. Not that it would be a good thing in the end. The good, though magnetic and entracing, was weakness. And Damian would sacrifice a peaceful heart if it meant he would be strong. If it meant no one could hurt him in any way ever again. 

That didn't stop him from marveling at Jon’s willful openness. He gave so much of himself to everyone he met so instantly, like they were more deserving of it than he was. He decided people were worth it with just a glance. 

Maybe, in a sort of backwards way, that very thing is what made Jon stronger than Damian could ever hope to be. He was strong enough to show all that he was without infliction, without being afraid someone might walk into his heart and burn it all out, leaving nothing but broken, blackened, charred remains. Maybe that was Jon’s secret. Instead of hiding away, protecting yourself from anyone and anything that could possibly hurt you, opening up. Displaying yourself to the world as if saying, _Come and get me_. Maybe that was true strength. The kind that Father or Ras simply were too scared to try to know. Perhaps Damian was too scared as well. 

Or perhaps Jon was a loving fool. A fool to allow himself to be so fully and so completely compromised without as much as a single thought. Maybe Damian would feel for him, if once upon a time he wasn’t taught that pity was the greatest form of self-indulgence. That it was wrong. He caught himself from thinking it, really he tried, but sometimes the things we think and feel can't be conditioned so neatly. Alas, he catches himself, more than he would like, feeling for the gentle boy standing before him. _Pitying_ him. Jon had not gotten the chance to be strong. He was being willfully misguided by those that he trusted the most. Allowed to believe that his perfect idealized version of the world was a reality. And the longer it went on for, the more it would crush him when the smoke cleared. Damian tried not to feel bad that he was one of the evil people leading Jon astray. 

It wasn't like Jon was Damian's responsibility anyway. Sure, they were partners, and out in the field he would give his life to see Jon return home to Krypto safely, but that's where it ended. Their partnership was strictly professional, born of their fathers’ closely related night activities. It was that and nothing more. They both knew it. At least, they sure made a show of it to each other. Though, the things we iron onto the surface are not always how we feel deep within. In fact, they usually never are. 

So, cloaked by the darkness of the newly costumed Metropolis-as-Gotham, Damian watched Jon as he worked. Watched him jump and fly and giggle to no one but himself and the moon above. If the unorthodox black of the city bothered him at all, it didn't show. And in the early startings of the morning, when the sky started to awake for a new day and Jon was trotting back over to Damian’s side on the roof, he could swear he saw his way-too-blue eyes glow in the freshly arrived sun. 

They sat side-by-side for what felt like a million moments, but at the same time none at all, watching the sun rise over Metropolis once more, fixing the unsettling air that had accumulated from the sins of darkness. Jon watched the sun rise, gaping in perfectly entranced wonder at the sight before him. Like it was and would always be the most beautiful thing he’ll ever see. Damian was watching Jon, finding himself hoping deep in his burned out heart it wouldn't be true. Hoping that Jon does, in fact, see many more beautiful things after today. Things to rival that of a simple sunrise. 

It was dumb. To love someone so weak. Someone so easily crushed. To hope so much for them that it makes your heart do a funny ache sometimes, but if anyone in this unforgiving world deserved it, it was Jon.

**Author's Note:**

> If you actually got to the end of that mess, congrats. It's sort of a stuffy read. 
> 
> Anyways, I would love to hear your take on this or Jon and Damian's relationship. I'd love some discussion or alternate perspectives. 
> 
> Thank you for reading and I hope you enjoyed reading this as much as I did writing it.


End file.
